He's Perfect
by fananicfan
Summary: A one-shot piece originally written in response to a challenge on another board.  The challenge prompt was to pick a milestone in the life, after the finale, of Harmon Rabb, Jr.


_**Ficathon Challenge #2 - Milestone**_

JAG and its characters are the property of CBS Television, Paramount Studios and Bellisarius Productions. All rights reserved. No monetary gain will be realized from this story and no copyright infringement is intended.

HE'S PERFECT

by: fananicfan

MAY 25, 2007

I get up early with no intention of following my regular routine today.

It seems like such an inaccurate statement, but it's true - becoming and being a father has been nothing, yet everything...and more that I'd been told and thought that it would be.

How does that make sense, one might ask.

To truly understand, I'd have to start back at the beginning when the doctor told us that the last procedure had worked and that we were expecting a baby.

After a year of trying, the words were music to my ears, and a smile appeared on my face, but my first feeling wasn't joy, the emotion that one would expect me to feel, for that matter, the emotion that I believed up until that moment would've been my first reaction.

No, my first response was relief. Thankfully, my smile covered for that emotion with Mac.

As she smiled at me, tears in her eyes, obviously elated by the news, I was relieved that the months of testing, shots and procedures were over for Mac.

I was relieved that I'd finally succeeded at giving Mac the one thing that she'd yearned to have but was beginning to believe was going to elude her for the entire span of her life.

One would expect that, as the first trimester of her pregnancy came to an end, I'd have felt joy as we, now having given ourselves time to have something go wrong, started to tell our friends and family about the little Rabb that was on his or her way. However, I felt fear.

Mac isn't an emotionally fragile woman, but she was so happy to be expecting a baby. I was afraid that something would go wrong and that, if Mac lost the baby, she'd be devastated.

Mac told me during our anniversary dinner that came about half way through her pregnancy, "You know that the only thing that makes being married and having a baby better is that I'm married to you and we're having a baby together."

If she lost the baby, would she be okay? Would she ever be able to get past it?

Remembering how Harriet had come to me when she couldn't speak with Bud after losing baby Sarah, I was fearful that, if we lost our baby, our marriage wouldn't survive, and those were the fears of losing just the baby. It didn't include the horrible thoughts that I'd sometimes have that a complication in the pregnancy or the birth could cost Mac her life, and I'd lose them both.

If other men have those fears, they don't talk about them. At least, I couldn't find any books on how to handle those feelings, though I did find books on how to get past the loss of loved ones.

If the words in those books might have been useful in my situation, as well, I wouldn't know because I couldn't read them. I didn't want to know how to deal with losing them. I wanted to know how to feel the joy that I've been told comes with pending fatherhood and be as excited as Mac was at every doctor's appointment.

The last trimester of Mac's pregnancy did nothing to alleviate my fears. Mac was having some problems. According to her doctor, nothing that doesn't happen to one out of so many women, and he assured us that there was nothing to worry about. 'Everything is fine,' he'd said.

Fine, yeah right! Baby Sarah was fine, too, all the way up until delivery, and Harriet had already had one successful pregnancy and birth, so with Mac's condition and the minor complications that Mac was having, what were really the chances that I'd be bringing both Mac and the baby home from the hospital in a few months?

I enter the nursery and look into the crib at our sleeping baby.

The joy on Mac's face as the doctor laid our newborn child on her stomach and her tears of happiness that were streaming down her cheeks were pleasing to me, but the emotions that she seemed to be experiencing escaped me until...

Standing in the delivery room, cutting the umbilical cord as my son wailed as if he were saying in the only way that he was capable, "I'm here and I'm okay, Dad," the knot of worry and fear that had taken up residence in my stomach dissolved in an instant, and my heart filled with happiness and my eyes filled with tears of joy.

The sudden rush of emotions made me light-headed, and I thought that I might pass out, but Mac's, "Harm, he's perfect, isn't he?" was just what I needed to hear at the moment, and I focused on my baby boy as the nurses whisked him to the far side of the room to clean him up.

While the nurses worked, I inventoried his fingers and toes.

"Two arms...two legs...ten fingers...ten toes...and what he needs to be a boy." I remember a nurse laughing at that last comment. "So, I'd say that he's perfect, all right."

A few minutes later, having finished with his weigh-in and first bath, a nurse lifted our clean and swaddled baby up into her arms and asked, "Who's going to get to hold this little guy first, Mom or Dad?"

Dad, that's me, I thought. That little boy is mine. I'm a father. I have a son!

I hadn't taken the time during Mac's pregnancy to think about it in that way. In my defense, perhaps it was the medical intervention that we needed that kept me from thinking in those simple terms.

However, looking at my son sleeping peacefully in his crib this morning, his first morning at home, all the modern medicine that made him possible is forgotten.

The only thing that's important is that he's healthy and Mac is okay, so my worries of the last nine months have ended, and I finally feel the joy of being a father.

I feel her hand on my shoulder.

"He's okay," Mac whispers.

"I know, but it's his first morning home, and I wanted to be awake to greet him."

* * *

Harm is unaware that, with his wife and son home, he's finally been able to relax completely, and Mac doesn't want to burst his bubble with the news that their son was up at two in the morning and that Dad slept through the early morning feeding.

* * *

Staring at my son, I whisper to Mac, "He's got your looks."

"So, if he has your brains, he'll be perfect, right?"

"Look at him, Mac," I say, shrugging my shoulders. "He's already perfect."

"I'm glad you think so, because I think he has your looks," Mac says.

"So, if he has your brains, that'll work, too," I comment.

I put my arm around Mac's waist and, together, we watch the perfect little boy who's changed our lives until he starts to cry. When that happens, I scoop him up so that I can say good morning to our perfect baby boy before handing him off to his mother so that she can feed him.


End file.
